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Following the four-wicket win over Punjab Kings (PBKS) in their Indian Premier League (IPL) match, Rajasthan Royals (RR) skipper Sanju Samson, expressing disappointment with his team's campaign, said that it is shocking where they are on the table despite so much star power and good players that they have.
With this win, RR is in the fifth spot in the points table with seven wins and seven losses. They have a total of 14 points. They can still climb up to the top four spots if Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) lose their last match against Gujarat Titans by a huge margin and Mumbai Indians lose their last match against Sunrisers Hyderabad too. PBKS's IPL 2023 campaign is over. They end in the eighth position with six wins and eight losses. They have a total of 12 points. Dhruv Jurel's final over six clinched the victory for Rajasthan Royals and ended Punjab Kings' hopes of sealing their place in the IPL 2023 playoffs at the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium on Friday. "I think at the end of the game, when Hety (Hetmyer) was going strong we thought we will finish by 18.5 overs (RR had to finish the run-chase in 18.3 overs to overtake RCB in terms of net run rate). We have a quality team and it is a little shocking to see where we stand on the table. I have been talking about (Yashasvi) Jasiwal almost every game. He has shown maturity. It feels like he has played 100 T20Is. Almost 90 per cent of the time we feel Boult will take a wicket in the first over. We were under pressure in the last few games," said Samson in a post-match presentation. After being put to bat first by RR, PBKS scored 187/5 in their 20 overs. They struggled against RR bowlers initially, losing their four wickets for just 50 runs in 6.3 overs. Then Jitesh Sharma (44 in 28 balls, with three fours and three sixes) and Sam Curran stitched a 64-run stand for the fifth wicket to bring PBKS back into the game. Then in death overs, Curran (49* in 31 balls, with four boundaries and two sixes) and Shahrukh Khan (41* in 23 balls, four boundaries and two sixes) joined forces to up the run rate, taking PBKS to a competitive total. They scored 46 runs in the final two overs. Navdeep Saini (3/40) was the pick of the bowlers for RR. Trent Boult and Adam Zampa took a wicket each. In the chase of 188, RR lost Jos Buttler early for a duck, his fifth this season. Then Yashasvi Jaiswal (50 in 36 balls, with eight fours) and Devdutt Padikkal (51 in 30 balls, with four boundaries and three sixes) stitched a 73-run stand for the second wicket, helping RR fight back. Later on, cameos from Shimron Hetmyer (46 in 28 balls, four boundaries and three sixes), Riyan Parag (20 in 12 balls, with one four and two sixes) and Dhruv Jurel (10* in four balls) helped RR clinch a last-over thriller win by four wickets. Kagiso Rabada (2/40) was the pick of the bowlers for PBKS. Sam Curran, Nathan Ellis, Deepak Chahar and Arshdeep Singh took a wicket each. Padikkal got the 'Player of the Match' award for his fifty. (ANI)
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